Friday, 19 August 2016

Each Autumn, the local farmers would look for ‘potato gatherers’ to gather the ‘praties’ as we called them. Imagine a cold Autumn dawn, the sharp frost broken by the early sun and the tractor as it ‘ raped ’ the field.

The most empowering sensation, was not the toil and the tedium of back-breaking work, but the clutch of the 10s 0d shilling note you were paid as you raced home with the ‘Queens’ ten-shillings.